


Away With Murder, Murder, Murder

by BobRussellFan



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, F/M, a bit more murdery than canon, but fun i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26037328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobRussellFan/pseuds/BobRussellFan
Summary: Zuko has a talk with Mai before the Day of Black Sun, with interesting results.
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40





	Away With Murder, Murder, Murder

“After I leave here today, I’m gonna free Uncle Iroh from prison and I will beg for his forgiveness! He’s been a real father to me.” Zuko finished, spread his arms, and looked at his increasingly skeptical audience. “...what? Is it really that bad?” 

Mai stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Zuko, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” she said, frost edging the edges of her voice that had little to do with the heat of the Imperial City. She looked away, hands sliding into her sleeves, and peered at the painting of Agni’s flames on the wall. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because I’m going to leave, rescue Iroh, and together we’re going to teach the Avatar how to firebend.” He said the words with a fiery certainty that would have been attractive under other circumstances. “And...because I already left you once. If I turned my back on you now, I’d deserve a knife in it.” He moved in close, his hand moving to touch her, and Mai - moved away. 

She walked around the edges of her room, holding up her finger to silence Zuko, checking door frames, window frames, and the tapestries with a cool, experienced eye. When she was done, she took him in her arms and led him to the corner of the room that lay furthest from window or door. When they were there, she looked at him and said “Zuko, you never left me. Your father exiled you. Don’t be an idiot.” 

They kissed this time, arms around each other, a promise of more than the fumbling they’d done on the couch without technically breaking royal custom about what engaged couples in the palace could do before they were married, and Zuko smiled. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” She gave him a small, rare smile, and then grew more serious. “But Zuko...you have to kill your father.” 

“W-” She put her hand over his mouth before he could finish the exclamation, waited with eyes blazing, and then released it when he was ready to whisper, “...what? I can’t kill him,” he said in a pained whisper, “he’s the most powerful fire-bender in the Fire Nation...and he’s my father.” She saw his eyes widen as what he’d really said sunk in. “It’s the Avatar’s job to remove threats to the balance of the world.” 

Her nose curled. “Maybe it’s just because I’m not a bender, but that sounds like a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo to me. If somebody doesn’t stop your father, he is going to burn away the ground from our feet and bury this nation in the ashes. He needs to die. And I for one would rather it be the new Firelord who does it than some...Air Bender child who has all the stomach of a snail-kitten. I don’t even think he _could_ do it.” 

“Aang is _not_ weak,” said Zuko with certainty, but other certainties were fading away even as he talked to Mai. “...but what about Azula?” 

Mai put her hand on her chin. “Azula’s too young to be Firelord. She’d need special dispensation from the Fire Sages or the word of her predecessor, and she’s not going to get that if you’re already on the throne.” 

Zuko blinked. “How do you know so much about-oh, right.” He caught her look and winced. Mai’s family were as high as your blood could be if it didn’t burn with the fires of Agni - which meant that while he’d been learning the soldierly arts with the idea of one day being Lu Ten’s great general (before catastrophe had changed all of that), she’d been learning the courtier’s arts from her mother’s knee. There was a reason why she and Azula had been friends for so long. “I don’t think she’ll care,” he said. “I think she’ll challenge me to an Agni Kai anyway.” 

“From what you said about the meeting, she’ll be busy dealing with the Avatar when it happens,” said Mai, folding her hands in front of her. “That’ll give us time to consolidate the situation.” All through the conversation, her tone of voice hadn’t risen louder than if she was discussing the latest court gossip - she really had learned her lessons well. 

Zuko blinked and rubbed his eyes - whatever he’d expected from this conversation, it hadn’t been this. “All right. I’ll...see what I can do,” he said doubtfully. “But Mai, I can’t strike down my father in cold blood. If he doesn’t give me a reason, I’m going to join the Avatar and you’re going with me.” 

Her eyebrow went up. “I_am_?” 

“You just said ‘us’,” he said, a faint smirk on his face. “I take it that means you’re going with me. Even if we do have to grab a war balloon on the way out.” 

Mai sighed and rolled her eyes. “...all right,” she said seriously, “But I am _not_ riding around on that stupid buffalo…” 

\---

Later. 

Things weren’t going well. Zuko had come armed with Mai’s encouragement, with more courage in him around his father than she’d ever seen. But Ozai, damn that reptilian bastard, had played it cool even in the face of a defiant son - and had hardly said a word to the non-bender that her son had brought with him. Zuko’s swords were out, but it didn’t seem like he was going to use them. 

Mai knew perfectly well that Zuko was capable of killing. She knew this because she’d heard stories of battles against pirates and the occasional Earth Kingdom vessel, battles where the exiled prince had fought alongside his men even as he’d learned they weren’t so different than he was. She knew this because he hadn’t turned from her when she’d told him the hard reality of fighting alongside Azula against the forces of the Earth Kingdom. Knives gave you many options. But sometimes fate only gave you one. 

Ozai sneered - and Mai started devoting more of her attention to the conversation. Agni’s breath frozen they had to be almost out of time! “...Really? Since you're a full-blown traitor now and you want me gone, why wait? I'm powerless. You've got your swords - you’ve got your slut of a fiancee. Why don't you just do it now?” He sat there as he spoke and Mai to her surprise did something that would have earned her a beating even if she hadn’t been talking to the Fire Lord. 

“You don’t deserve it!” she called, almost shocked at the sound of her own voice ringing in the room - Zuko certainly was, and from the brief widening of his eyes, Ozai was too before he mastered his responses. He'd taken her reserve for fear; as some had before. “You’re a miserable excuse for a man, and a miserable excuse for a father!”

“Your bitch is misbehaving,” Ozai sneered at his son. “Perhaps you should cuff her.” 

Zuko advanced on his father, swords in hand. “You’d better watch how you talk about the future Fire Lady, _Father._” And for a moment, anyway, Mai knew that Zuko was about to do it; because he would take any amount of blows from his father but he would never fail to defend someone else, because that was who he was.

“She doesn’t belong on the throne,” sneered Ozai, his voice getting a trifle faster as Zuko got close. He'd played the heavy to humiliate her and frighten Zuko and it hadn't worked, and he knew he was about to die, unless - . “She’s nothing like your mother! _Don’t you want to know what happened to her?_” Mai almost threw a knife at Ozai as the blow hit home and Zuko froze, but she knew he would never forgive her. 

“What?” 

“Your mother knew what I’d been ordered - she knew I’d been ordered to spill your blood just as Lu Ten’s had been spilled. She came to me that night and told me she would do anything to protect her son and make me Fire Lord in the process.” Ozai smiled. “It was the first time she’d ever said anything interesting. I might have kept her close; but what can I say? She did vicious, treasonous things that night. She knew the consequences and accepted them. For her treason, she was banished.” 

Tears came to Zuko’s eyes, even the one that had been burned, and Mai had her hand inside her sleeve as Zuko said, “So she’s alive?” 

Mai was reasonably sure that Ozai had been able to do the math - if Ursa was willing to poison one Firelord to save her children, she’d probably do it again - but there was no time for such thoughts as Ozai rose to his feet. “Banishment is far too merciful a penalty for treason.” He closed his eyes. “The penalty for the two of you will be far steeper.” 

Everything happened at once. As lightning crackled around Ozai impossibly fast, Mai threw a knife, her blood running cold in her veins when it ricocheted off the electric furnace around the Firelord - and Ozai fired a lightning bolt at Zuko. Mai had just enough time to know that she would make sure the next blade was a finger-length in Ozai's eye if she died trying - and then Zuko caught the lightning in his hands, twisted his upper body with a look of fantastic effort on his face - and hurled it at his father. 

The bolt of lighting hit Ozai between the eyes and blew his head off. 

“Agni!” declared Zuko, his eyes popping wide. Mai’s eyes were wide too; she had seen death before but for Fire’s sake his head was in _pieces_. She hated wet, slippery things; and there were a great many of those now on the throne. “I...I…” Lighting can be redirected!?! thought Mai wildly, wondering why no one had decided to share that rather pertinent piece of information with her. The eclipse was over and the sound of battle outside intensified; and before the two of them had a chance to confer, the doors flew open to reveal the royal guards. 

“My lords, I-” The head guardsman, an older man who Mai knew had resented Azula’s earth-bending pets, entered the room and seemed briefly at a loss for words. It wasn’t the first time that the path to the throne had come with blood, but that blood had a way of multiplying, and he would either spill it or have his spilled in the near-future. Unless they took action.

“It was Iroh, you idiots!” called Mai loudly, using the Mom voice she hated but had perfected in private just in case she needed it. “General Iroh broke free from his prison, killed the Firelord, and now he’s made his escape!” Wait, dammit… 

“But there’s only one door-” 

“...o-only one door that _you_ know about,” said Zuko awkwardly, making eye contact with Mai, the stutter in his voice making him sound like a loyal son who had just seen his father horribly killed. And not a prince who was not a very good liar. “He probably has confederates in that prison. As soon as the Avatar’s forces are repulsed,” he added, “I’m going to go there and see to his fate. Nobody else is to touch him but me.” 

“Assuming that wreck in that cell is even General Iroh at all,” said Mai dismissively. “I don’t think we need to worry about him. We need to capture as many prisoners as we can to find out the real plan.” If they were going to make peace with the Avatar, keeping his friends alive made sense - especially if they had them to hand. Fire Nation military doctrine encouraged prisoner-taking, anyway; you never knew when other people might come in handy. 

“...yeah,” said Zuko, “they were probably just bait. We still should bring the fake Iroh here. I’ll question him personally.” He shot Mai a small smile, and she smiled back, quickly. His admiration for his uncle was not something Mai understood; but for the moment, it seemed to be accomplishing what they needed. 

Amid a welter of orders and movement over the next few minutes as a Firelord-in-waiting took over for his late father, he whispered to her, “so is there a version of today that doesn’t end in Azula blowing up _my_ head?” 

“She’ll never believe you could do something like this,” whispered Mai cooly. “I certainly didn’t.” The shouting and explosions outside certainly suggested that Azula had heard the news and was getting close. As the doors came open, she added, “And I did have a little chat with Ty Lee last night when you were making that tea…”

_And I never had to ride on that stupid buffalo!_

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments below - love to hear your thoughts!


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